YET ANOTHER REASON TO DETEST THE BBC?

PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY EXCEPT THEY DON’T

THE BBC

Articles in this weeks press with regards to the BBC do not surprise BFG. No antics at the BBC surprise us anymore. We have been to the heart of the beast…and it stinks….rotting from the inside. Like the human body turning in on its self as its cells mutate, ‘celebrities’ are eating away within the corporate host to become a cancer that eventually will kill the BBC. Like a tumour, unless it is cut out, it spreads corrupting once healthy tissue. It appears, for a number of individuals, the trough that we have collectively provided and regularly fill via the license fee via the efforts of our labour. is well worth shoving a well groomed, well connected, politically correct snout into for the chosen few. Maybe now is the time, collectively, to demand the licence fee be diverted to pay for one last journey to Dignitas for the BBC where souls who realise life is no longer the preferred option have the plug pulled on them that one last time. BBC pay: High-profile female presenters demand action on gender pay gap in open letter to Tony Hall This is the headline in the Independent (articlehere). The one organisation that has religiously told the viewers and listeners ad infinitum about how important ‘sexual equality’, ‘ethnic diversity’ and ‘LGBT’ issues, has, on the pay issue, as in the BBC dressing rooms of Stewart Hall, Rolf Harris and Jimmy Saville, been caught, once again, with their collective pants down. We are all aware of individuals at parties who tell you at every opportunity that they are ‘wacky’ and or ‘mad’. The reality is always somewhat different. The BBC, like many large corporations, is a little like our ‘wacky’ party friend. They begin to actually start to believe their own hype. They have become well versed in broadcasting to the world how in touch with the above issues they are, via PC mouth music rather, as in this case, actions and then hiding behind leaflets and proclamations, when in actuality, anything that gets in the way of the lovey gravy chain will be summarily dispensed with. As Public Enemy said DON’T BELEIVE THE HYPE. The Independent story claims that the ladies at the BBC are a mite upset that their male autocue reading counterparts are getting paid significantly more than they are and want action. Good on them. We wish them well in their honourable desire to see not only equality in pay but a more reasonable salary for reading a script. We can only assume that Claire Balding, Sarah Montague and Louise Minchin et al will be forthright in demanding that the likes of Jeremy Vine and Hugh Edwards pay packet are REDUCED in line to that of what the ladies are paid at the BBC and it is not a blatent attempt for the women to demand an increase to match the men as this would, be nothing more than the politics of envy and display utter contempt to the general public who pay their wages in the first place. We trust it is not a blatent attempt for the women at the BBC to join their male counterparts at the trough. We are sure that this is not the intention of said ladies to embarrass the senior BBC management in order to get a pay rise. Ladies, we are right behind you to drastically reduce the salaries of those named, if of course that is your intention. BUT WHAT ABOUT MARKET FORCES?This particular play is taken straight out of the ‘Big Book Of Bankers Bouns Bollocks’ which states clearly that if a particular bank doesn’t pay the eye watering bonus then staff will leave to those that will. But will they? They haven’t have they?But you say, if they have their pay halved they will join Sky or ITV. But why would Sky or ITV pay significantly above what the BBC pay? In any event, if they did move it would give plenty of opportunities for newcomers to get a break in broadcasting. Everyone wins, BBC cuts their cost, passed on with cheaper license fee to the public and the youngsters get a shot.Take Garry “Walker” Liniker for example. He is paid over a million to talk about football. How exactly you can generate enough comments likened to the ‘the boy done good’ to command a million pounds of our money is beyond us.Remeber, the BBC is not a ‘Commercial’ Opertation. It is a public service. So two ideas for The idea for the BBC to save money. Idea (a) might even broaden audience appeal to Match of The Day. a) Instead of paying exorbitant salaries to guys in various shades of pastel coloured shirts to talk about how one set of eleven men were so much better than the other eleven men when the score of 5-0 has already done that, interview fans down the pub and buy them a pint. You might even get a fight throw in. Now that would be worth watching, plus leaves you more money to buy the rights to the matches as Sky will now be paying for ‘Garry’s’ hair highlights b) An open offer to the BBC management. To further save on expenditure, and to fully utislise my abilites as highlighted in a number of high profile media cases, if you require someone who can dismantle a lying, duplicitous, scheming politician or business man’s argument with laser like precision and logic and be prepared to do it for half what you pay Jeremy VIne or John Humphreys then please fill in the contact form on the website and we can take it from there.All in the interests of equality you understand.

Many abortive plan B’s came and went. Coding CD’s that could not be copied highlighted the tailspin the labels were in. Even then they could not see that the writing was on the wall, the future was not hard copies, it was soft. That’s why the bedroom coders within months of coming on line were affecting the profits of the majors. Things were bad, perms were down to once a month and the grey roots of the music business were starting to show. Interestingly, despite many of the major labels having divisions that are involved in military arms production, it seemed to be beyond their collective ability to produce software that could rival that of their bedroom nemesis.

There was only one option left. Another plan B. Jump into bed with said nemesis and hope they did not understand the difference between gross and net.

They did.

THE GATEKEEPERS THEY ARE A CHANGING

Having been asleep as the first wave of the digital economy all but washed away their profit centre, the major labels, as anyone interested enough to look will see, all now have significant shares in streaming services. Not only have they got their fingers in that particular pie, they have rammed their collective fists into it.

In the past, in order to exploit the sales potential of the tracks they owned, the majors needed to ensure radio play. Radio was the gatekeeper, Radio was the piper and he who paid the piper (by an intermediary called a plugger) called the tune, or, as the major labels referred to them, units. The bigger the labels wallet, the bigger the ‘independent’ pluggers payslip. The bigger the ‘independent pluggers’ payslip, the more lavish the liquid lunch they could provide to wine and dine any producer of any particular show.

Ever wondered why here in the UK the vast majority of the BBC’s daytime music output was music released by the major labels. Well, you now have your answer.

The original gatekeepers, however, are now fumbling for the keys to the musical Kingdom and the reason is very simple. When the phone in your pocket can predict exactly the type of music you enjoy, and can, within a few seconds recommend any new release that matches your choice, why would anyone want to wade through the inane and usually hypocritical drivel of any daytime radio DJ’s (yes we know who you are and how much you earn) in order to feed your thirst for type of music that you want to hear, when you want to hear it.

Virtually the only gatekeeper in town now is the streaming service Spotify.

SPOTIFY BUSINESS MODEL

Probably one of the most important streaming services is Spotify. Spotify has two income streams, namely, income derived from subscription fees from its users that remove ads that pop up every few minutes. The free user has their flow of music interrupted with ads targeted at exactly their tastes and surfing habits. Of course, the business model means that the millions of companies are willing to advertise on Spotify make it economically feasible to offer a ‘free’ option, in return for subjecting those not willing to pay for music to actually pay for it with a much more valuable commodity, their time.

With the money and the marketing expertise that the major labels have injected into the company, Spotify, is now, to a great extent, the way the vast majority of people listen to music. Why own a stack of CD’s or fill your ever expanding disk drives with downloads of your choice in music when, with a click of the button, there is your desired ordered list of 1’s and 0’s ready for you to consume.

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

The big driver in breaking new music to a previously unaware public, replacing the role of the previous gatekeeper, is that of the Spotify playlist. Finally, you would think there is a level playing field between the major labels and the tiny independents and unsigned artist. No longer is success dependant on how deep your pockets are to enable you to wine and dine the ever expanding waistlines of the all powerful radio producers. If you are still under the illusion that daytime DJ’s have any real power there is really no hope for you, and might we suggest you apply to the X factor next year to make you the star you always dreamed of becoming.

The playing field is now level. All you need is to make music of great quality, with great production value and this will immediately get picked up by Spotify and placed on the appropriate playlist.

You’re ahead of us aren’t you? The playing field is still virtually vertical, in favour of the Spotify paymasters of course i.e. the major labels.

Unsuprisingly the most listend to playlists are those curated by Spotify themselves and the following came to light only a few days ago. Draw what ever conclusion you like from the following.

14 MILLION PLAYS BUT WHO IS SHE?

Recently, on behalf of Amelia Chain, an artist that we are currently working with, we delved, somewhat belatedly, into the world of the Spotify playlist

The music of Amelia Chain can be classified as ‘Modern Classic’ along the same lines as Ludovico Einaudi and Yann Tiersen. On that basis, after a little bit of research, we came upon the Spotify playlist ‘Piano in The Background.’ with nearly half million followers. All good so far. One of the ‘Artists’ on the playlist that sounded similar to Amelia Chain is an artist by the name of Karin Borg. Beautiful music indeed. ‘She’ has nearly one million monthly listeners. and fourteen million plays but we had never heard of ‘her’. We then embarked on an extensive seach to find out who this very gifted Karin was, but, very surprisingly we drew a blank on the usual google and Facebook channels. ‘Karin’ appeared to be the modern day version of the reclusive Audrey Hepburn yet somehow, nealy a million listeners were suffciently aware of her.